


helpless to the bass and the fading light.

by onlyeli



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alpha Bro Strider's Beats, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Jake is PINING bro, M/M, Not Canon Compliant - Homestuck 2: Beyond Canon, Not Canon Compliant - The Homestuck Epilogues, Not Epilogue Compliant, POV Dirk Strider, Post-Canon, REALLY want to drive THAT point home, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Vulnerability, bro trust me, dirk is a dork and the sooner we accept this the happier we will be, not that dirk notices, they are healing and improving and yall are gonna like it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:42:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22808047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlyeli/pseuds/onlyeli
Summary: You know that Jake’s coming to terms with reality and the shape of it, how it doesn’t always come wrapped up with a bow and a credit screen, but you want to be sure. You can’t be the perfect movie boyfriend for him. You hope he knows that. You hope he’s okay with it.Hope was always his thing, though.or: Jake tells Dirk he'd never danced like no one was watching in that treehouse of his, and Dirk has to amend that immediately.
Relationships: Jake English/Dirk Strider
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45





	helpless to the bass and the fading light.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leviathanchronicles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leviathanchronicles/gifts).



> yes the title IS from shut up and dance with me

You turn on all the lights in your room and shove as much of the spare metal under your bed as you can before he arrives. It’s only fair to make him feel safe here, to remove any associations with shadow and secrecy and a batshit crazy battlebot you’d shipped to him when he was a kid. Maybe you know this would be a little more cinematic in the dark, moonlight streaming in through your window, but you exercise a little authority and decide it’d be better to stay away from that sort of set-up. You know that Jake’s coming to terms with reality and the shape of it, how it doesn’t always come wrapped up with a bow and a credit screen, but you want to be sure. You can’t be the perfect movie boyfriend for him. You hope he knows that. You hope he’s okay with it. 

Hope was always his thing, though.

He arrives late, but you’d considered that already. He likes to get sidetracked, and you like to let him. It means he smells like dirt and his knees are scratched up, but you can’t find it in you to mind. You love him a little more like this, honest and grinning at your front door, waiting to be let in. You step aside and welcome him, barely suppressing a smile. 

“Casa de Strider!” He claps his hands together at his front and rocks over his feet, beaming at your ceiling like it’s changed any since the last time he saw it. “Can’t say I expected all of this to be our dancefloor!”

“Dude,” you deadpan, leaning against your now-closed door and pretending you aren’t nervous, “I promised the full experience. You can’t have the full dancing-in-one’s-room experience if one isn’t in one’s room.”

“I’ll be in your room,” he points out, and you smile for him, private and small.

“You sure will.”

The effort you’d exerted in cleaning goes unnoticed, mainly because you didn’t do a very good job. There are still half-finished sewing projects that he jumps over like it’s a game, both feet pressed together and hands balled into fists at his side. There are, at your count, four half-empty cups of water gathering dust on your windowpane, bedside table and desk, but Jake doesn’t so much as spare them a glance before he’s spinning in a neat circle and settling himself on the edge of your bed with a weighty huff. His hands rest on his knees, fingers tapping a tune that isn’t playing yet. You don’t look at him too long, even with your shades on. He spots you when you try to hide, now, so there’s no use making the attempt, and you’ve realised that there’s a press to your gaze. He’s still smiling when you make your way over to your sound system, and it lights up your periphery like the sun rising over the sea. 

When the music starts, you almost forget he’s there.

You love him, yes, but once upon a time you’d lived without him, and you can remember that on occasion. A heavy bass line permeates the otherwise still air. Jake jumps a little, straightens his shoulders out in surprise, but you can’t pay him any heed when you’re enjoying a solitude you recall as easy as your first name.

You never were any good at dancing. It was always something you watched other people do on TV and turned up your nose at, but your Bro’s old beats have a certain way with you that you’ve given up resisting. The one you’ve chosen is an oldie, but a goldie -- ‘dumb synth bullshit’, track five, mixtape two. There’s a wicked key change that kicks up about a minute in that made you lose your fucking mind the first time you’d played it, and you wait for it eagerly now, turning away from him and tapping along your workbench. You know he’s watching you, and it makes the hair on the back of your neck prickle, but you’d promised him this.  
That means something, to you, at least.

The music thrums across the floor. Your foot gets the idea first, shuffles until it’s tapping in rhythm to the metronome. It spreads slowly to your knee, then to your shoulders, until you’re bobbing your head and humming along. 

Your relationship with music is a funny one. It’s enjoyable because it’s a pattern that can be altered whenever you damn well please and still make sense at the end. Nothing else is like that, that you’ve found, and you lose yourself in mixing and editing in a way that you can’t with mechanics and sewing. There’s a right and a wrong way to fix a machine or to complete a stitch. Music isn’t like that. Sure, chords can clash and climaxes can feel flat, but that’s all so fucking objective. You like it, isn’t that enough?

Nothing you’ve ever made gets you quite like your Bro’s stuff, though. He really understood music, you think. Or maybe he just understood how to have fun with it better than you do. Whatever the case, the key change hits, and you jump into the air before you can catch yourself. Jake sucks in a breath behind you, but you are way past caring, because the song has caught you up in its airflow and you are all sorts of gone, sliding around mess and moving slightly off-beat. This one has words, and you whisper-sing them when you remember them, disjointed fragments of phrases and sentences as you let it relearn you. It’s been a while since you forgot yourself like this, comfortable and controlled. 

Jake hasn’t moved, perched atop your comforter. You turn to face him, eyebrow raised, mouth still working on those words. His lips are pressed together, but not in a way that makes you defensive. He isn’t laughing at you. The way he watches you move makes you feel a little self-conscious, but, if you’re honest, what doesn’t? You shrug at him, unwilling to disrupt the song with needless conversation, and hold out your hands.

It takes him a second, but he gets there. His fingers wrap around your bony wrists, and, not for the first time, you wonder how he can find comfort there, in all your sharp edges. You return his grip but don’t make a move just yet; the song has slowed, and it’d make no sense to bring him in for anything but the apex of the melody, when the drums and vocals and hum of synthesisers twist together and really explode. He keeps looking at you, like he’s never seen your face before and he’s trying to remember something vital about it. Eye contact is hard, and so you amuse yourself by tossing your head and making an absolute goddamn fool of yourself for his viewing pleasure. He’s seen you at so many extremes -- furious, elated, beat to hell, despondent. This is just another milestone, and the look in his eyes is hard to stomach alongside that knowledge. 

You whisper-sing some more.

He’s still looking, his face alight with a glow that you feel in your chest, cheeks about as hot as his hands. Warmth spreads along your arms from where his palms touch yours, and you almost miss the moments leading up to the crescendo because you’re thinking about how wide his eyes are behind his glasses, bottle-green and gorgeous. The grin you offer him is crooked, and so is the one he accepts it with. The tune builds until you can’t stand it, and before you know what you’re doing you pull him up, into your chest, and kiss him as hard as you can.

For what it’s worth, he doesn’t seem to mind, and he holds you until the song ends.

**Author's Note:**

> do i personally just enjoy dirk being an idiot in front of people, little by little? yes. this boy raps to retrieve things from his sylladex, the s in strider stands for stupid.  
> very self indulgent, based on a talk levi leviathanchronicles had. check out his stuff i looove him.


End file.
